Malcolm says all he did was Google an error message and ended up finding a specific link to a Pastebin post. As he investigated further, he stumbled across various pieces of data that paint a picture of what Facebook looks like behind the scenes — in a digital sense, anyway.

He found what looked to be names, commands, and other "interesting information". As you'll see in an example below, the code probably won't mean much to most people, but letting it roam free on the internet "probably wasn't the smartest move," Malcolm says.

When discussing some of the files (not the image above), Malcolm explains:

"The person who, likely, posted this was "emir". This may be the person's first name, or it could be their first initial and then their surname (E. Mir). It's clear this output was intended to be seen by another engineer at Facebook, so posting it on Pastebin probably wasn't the smartest move. This person may have made other slip ups which could make them a target if an attacker sees an opportunity."

Malcolm concedes that his findings don't really pose a direct threat to Facebook, but suggests the resources could in extreme circumstances.

He even found Facebook's password for MySQL — the open source database management system.Crucially, Malcolm says Facebook's servers are heavily firewalled, so the information is effectivelyuseless unless "you manage to break into Facebook's servers," he notes.

Overall, lots of people appear simply amazed at how easy it is to see this stuff. One comment on Hacker News says that "while some leaks may not even be effective outside Facebook's internet network, having actual code that may be in production does pose a risk. The possibility to see where, for instance, data isn't fully sanitised, or where information being fetched might not require proper authentication is more worrying".

Another person mentions another source of files. They say: "I'm amazed at how many username/passwords are freely available via github search." The bottom line is, "If you do not want someone to find it — do not publish it online."